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Top 10 Ways to Know if Your Stockbroker Is

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Feb 24, 2009 3:34 am

I am trying to do this Letterman like list of the 'Top Ten Reasons Why…" thing, but its about sleazy practices that some financial advisers / agents / brokers use to basically screw their customers…

  Care to contribute??   So far I've come up with a couple...but need more...   10 - Your new broker made you liquidate your portfolio before transfering it...   9- Buy a VAR for your IRA...   8- Join the CFA Institute and imply he had his CFA Charter...   7- Sell you B shares...   I know they need some work....plz help
Feb 24, 2009 5:14 am

Instead of concentrating on the negative, why don’t you help out the profession by creating a list of: beyond Top 10 ways my broker goes above and by …

    For example:   10)     by helping purchase a new car and recommending not to buy the CL and AH insurance.   9)      hand deliverying your check request - even though you can't get out of the house because there is 4 feet of snow on the ground.   you get my point.....  
Feb 24, 2009 5:16 am

[quote=maddog]Instead of concentrating on the negative, why don’t you help out the profession by creating a list of: Top 10 ways my broker goes above and beyond by …

    For example:   10)     by helping purchase a new car and recommending not to buy the CL and AH insurance.   9)      hand deliverying your check request - even though you can't get out of the house because there is 4 feet of snow on the ground.   you get my point.....  [/quote]   corrections make - sorry - to much vodka after today's market and JH conference call.
Feb 24, 2009 2:00 pm
Convincing you that no, going all-in on Freddie or Fannie at $0.67 is not a good idea (you can replace whatever you want for the security…Sirius Satellite, Citi, your employer stock, etc.).
Feb 24, 2009 4:01 pm
B24:

8) Convincing you that no, going all-in on Freddie or Fannie at $0.67 is not a good idea (you can replace whatever you want for the security…Sirius Satellite, Citi, your employer stock, etc.).

  My favorite brilliant idea for stock lately was a guy that came in and wanted to buy a bunch of AIG and GM, convinced that things were not as bad as people were saying. Ah, the optomists...
Feb 24, 2009 7:27 pm
    placing you in a wrap account and charging you fee for losing your money.
Feb 25, 2009 3:12 pm

6)  Putting you in an annuity with a 14 year CDSC.

   
Feb 25, 2009 3:29 pm

1) Bashing other stock brokers to prospects. 

Feb 25, 2009 5:43 pm

[quote=MinimumVariance]I am trying to do this Letterman like list of the 'Top Ten Reasons Why…" thing, but its about sleazy practices that some financial advisers / agents / brokers use to basically screw their customers…

  Care to contribute??   So far I've come up with a couple...but need more...   10 - Your new broker made you liquidate your portfolio before transfering it...   9- Buy a VAR for your IRA...   8- Join the CFA Institute and imply he had his CFA Charter...   7- Sell you B shares...   I know they need some work....plz help [/quote]   We regularly cite the statistics about how clients destroy their returns by buying high and selling low, but don't brokers encourage that behavior by telling new clients to liquidate before transferring?   Unfortunately, I'd imagine it happens more often than not.
Feb 25, 2009 9:52 pm

[quote=MinimumVariance]I am trying to do this Letterman like list of the 'Top Ten Reasons Why…" thing, but its about sleazy practices that some financial advisers / agents / brokers use to basically screw their customers…

  Care to contribute??   So far I've come up with a couple...but need more...   10 - Your new broker made you liquidate your portfolio before transfering it...   9- Buy a VAR for your IRA...   8- Join the CFA Institute and imply he had his CFA Charter...   7- Sell you B shares...   I know they need some work....plz help [/quote]   #1) You know that your broker is sleazy if he assumes that another broker is sleazy simply because he has had a client liquidate a portfolio, buy a VA for an IRA, and/or used B shares.   I'm proud to admit that I have done all three of those things.  I'm also proud to admit that when I've done it, it has been in my client's best interest.    
Feb 25, 2009 10:34 pm

Just trying to help educate them on MPT, statistically you're going to die before them and I thought they should be up to speed on your portfolio and how we do things and well......one thing led to another.  Beautiful family you have though!

Feb 26, 2009 4:37 pm

[quote=iceco1d]You know your stock broker is sleazy when…

  You come home from work and you catch him in bed with your wife...or your daughter...or both![/quote]   An excellent LOL.
Feb 27, 2009 2:09 am

You know you have a sleazy broker when you watch “Boiler Room”, you listen to the brokers in the background giving their sales pitches and you think, “Wait a minute…I’ve heard all of this somewhere before…”

Feb 27, 2009 3:23 am

[quote=MinimumVariance]I am trying to do this Letterman like list of the 'Top Ten Reasons Why…" thing, but its about sleazy practices that some financial advisers / agents / brokers use to basically screw their customers…

  Care to contribute??   So far I've come up with a couple...but need more...   10 - Your new broker made you liquidate your portfolio before transfering it...   9- Buy a VAR for your IRA...   8- Join the CFA Institute and imply he had his CFA Charter...   7- Sell you B shares...   I know they need some work....plz help [/quote]

Now we're bashing ourselves?  Smart.  Talk about self-loathing. 
Feb 27, 2009 5:39 pm

I guess none of you’ve ever seen David Letterman’s Top Ten list schtick. They are supposed to be funny. Now the one about coming home and finding your broker in bed w/ your wife, that’s just normal human behavior – everybody does that. Remeber the guy who drove a cement mixer, and came home accidentially, and found the local insurance salesman’s new convertible parked in his driveway, and…U remeber this story I’m sure. However, if he’d been in bed (make that the tool shed) with your 15 year old son… 

  I thought of another one tho:   6- Not telling your dear departed dad that the 'tax free' annuity he sold him may escape the estate tax and deferrs dad's capital gains, but the inheritor has to pay income tax rates on required withdrawls. (?)   Come on guys -- be creative here....instead of sleazy how about sleazy and unethical???
Feb 27, 2009 6:02 pm

Who is David Letterman?

Feb 27, 2009 6:08 pm

[quote=MinimumVariance]I guess none of you’ve ever seen David Letterman’s Top Ten list schtick. They are supposed to be funny. Now the one about coming home and finding your broker in bed w/ your wife, that’s just normal human behavior – everybody does that. Remeber the guy who drove a cement mixer, and came home accidentially, and found the local insurance salesman’s new convertible parked in his driveway, and…U remeber this story I’m sure. However, if he’d been in bed (make that the tool shed) with your 15 year old son… 

  I thought of another one tho:   6- Not telling your dear departed dad that the 'tax free' annuity he sold him may escape the estate tax and deferrs dad's capital gains, but the inheritor has to pay income tax rates on required withdrawls. (?)   Come on guys -- be creative here....instead of sleazy how about sleazy and unethical???[/quote]   Funny, I've heard the same regarding IRAs.  Yet the way you make it seem, if someone has an IRA, there's no possible way the rep was sleazy and unethical.  Right?
Feb 27, 2009 9:41 pm

[quote=MinimumVariance]I guess none of you’ve ever seen David Letterman’s Top Ten list schtick. They are supposed to be funny. Now the one about coming home and finding your broker in bed w/ your wife, that’s just normal human behavior – everybody does that. Remeber the guy who drove a cement mixer, and came home accidentially, and found the local insurance salesman’s new convertible parked in his driveway, and…U remeber this story I’m sure. However, if he’d been in bed (make that the tool shed) with your 15 year old son… 

  I thought of another one tho:   6- Not telling your dear departed dad that the 'tax free' annuity he sold him may escape the estate tax and deferrs dad's capital gains, but the inheritor has to pay income tax rates on required withdrawls. (?)   Come on guys -- be creative here....instead of sleazy how about sleazy and unethical???[/quote]   If they are supposed to be funny, can you please explain the humor in your list?   10 - Your new broker made you liquidate your portfolio before transfering it...   9- Buy a VAR for your IRA...   8- Join the CFA Institute and imply he had his CFA Charter...   7- Sell you B shares...   Not only am I missing the humor in your list, I'm also failing to see the sleaziness and unethicalness (other than #A). 
Feb 28, 2009 11:02 pm

these are numbers, where’s number A go?

   
Feb 28, 2009 11:06 pm

Come on – there’s gotta be a list of ten things just about EIA’s?

  How about tail risk in asymmetric density functions?   Something comical in calculating V@R?   BTW: Had a great response to a CC: "My son's a lawyer. He handles our money!"